This one was a hard one for me to write. For the few days following the event, I racked my brain thinking of how to write this. I believe in telling the truth always, but I also firmly believe that talking about losing fish is unproductive and focusing on the negative, unchangeable aspects of the sport. Between my close friends and family, I give the unadulterated details of each day, even then, trying to focus mostly on what “I” could have done differently in a situation. So, I’m going to try and land somewhere in the middle when we dive into the Bassmaster Open on the St. Lawrence River in Waddington, New York.
TRAVEL
My week prior to practice took me to New York City, to oversee a video project I had with the New York Mets for DuraEdge. New York City isn’t a place I’ve ever spent much time in the past as I’d consider myself a small town/country loving type person, but the hustle and bustle of a truly big city is an adventure I don’t mind going on from time to time. Since our tournament practice began at the end of the week, I ended up dropping my boat off at Oneida Lake (a short distance from the St. Lawrence River), at my good friend, Dan’s, on the way to NYC. One thing you do not want to do, is trailer a bass boat in NYC (laughs).
After dropping off the rig, we kept on going to the Big Apple. I’m thankful as I rolled in at a decent time and got to my hotel. From there, we prepped to get to Citi Field early the next morning, to meet with our friend, Bill Deacon, the head groundskeeper for the Mets. Fortunately, Bill and I already know each other from sharing the boat in Florida at our trade show in West Palm Beach. The day went smoothly and it was cool to see a renovation at an MLB field as I’ve been to renovations at fields of every other level in the past. They do a tremendous job taking care of their field and ballpark. Citi Field is a beautiful ballpark. It was a good time for them to get their renovation in during the All-Star break as a recent concert and other events had damaged portions of their field. I can’t go into much detail about the video project yet, but it is going to be really unique and high quality, so be on the lookout as we’ll be sharing that once it comes out.
We hit the road the next day to rendezvous with the DuraEdge Phoenix and get ready to head to the St. Lawrence River for practice at the end of the week. I arrived late in the afternoon and organized the truck and boat for the week before having dinner with my buddy, Dan. He was having shoulder surgery the next day after a off-road cycling accident, separating his shoulder and getting plenty more nicks too. Dan competes in lots of races and trains just about everyday, so I’m sure it was tough to turn it off for a bit to recoup.
The next couple days I caught up on some work and hit the road for the St. Lawrence. With only one event within about ten hours from the house this year, in smallmouth country, I was especially excited to tackle this place again. It’s kind of been a weird place for me in the past. There have been two smallmouth/northern fisheries that have thrown me for a loop and for some reason that’s Oneida Lake and the St. Lawrence. Nonetheless, my plan was to keep an open mind, fish a bit differently than I had in the past and hopefully have a better result.
PRACTICE DAY ONE
The first day of practice we headed down to our boundary line near the mouth of Lake Ontario. I’m mostly a lake guy, so when available, I like to fish Ontario. In this event, we could fish from Cape Vincent (near the mouth of the Lake) all the way to the dam at Massena. My good friend, Mark Hughes, signed up to fish as a co-angler for this one and practiced with me for the week which was not only fun, but also helpful in trying to figure out this massive fishery.
Our first stop, a spot I found a few years back yielded our first fish on a finesse football jig, A Beast Coast one, to be exact. It wasn’t a giant, 3.5 lbs, but I could see plenty more fish around the deep rocks on my Lowrance Active Target, so it definitely had potential. We bounced to the next shallow spot and had one grab a drop shot up shallow. As I scooted up there closer, I saw an enormous dark blob that ended up being a 6-7 pound largemouth sitting up there guarding his home base. I was not expecting to see that there. We kept working past there and started to see plenty of very noticeable dark blobs that ended up being the expected species, smallmouth bass, from 4-5.5 pounds (estimate). The problem was, none seemed to be very interested in anything you threw at them.
In practice, I like to throw at fish to see what makes them react best, usually pulling it away from them, but depending on the amount of fish and how good the fishery is, we’ll usually set the hook on some. We bounced around a bit more, running into a couple friends that were fishing the ABA event out of Clayton that day. Both ended up doing well, with one winning it. Yes, it was Jody White. Our day went well, but we never saw anything giant, some four pounders with a lot of threes.
PRACTICE DAY TWO
The next day of practice was our best one and where I would end up fishing the first day of the tournament. I’ve fished in the middle river section quite a bit in the past. When I say middle river, I’m referring to that Chippewa Bay to Ogdensburg section. With an incredible amount of fishable water at the St. Lawrence, I break it down to the Alex Bay to Cape Vincent section, that middle river we just spoke about and the section below (yes, it seems weird but the river flows from the Lake towards Massena) Ogdensburg to Massena. They each share similarities in the way they fish and to me, this has been the best way to break it down into more manageable chunks.
That section has a lot of shoals, islands, and current that rips through there; my creek fishing background applies to it fairly well. Being able to read current and visualize where a fish would position in it is so crucial on these river fisheries. To me, taking my very small-scale creek understanding and applying it to big river systems has been somewhat difficult unless I have more visible clues above the water. I think that’s what has thrown me for a loop on the TVA lakes as I continue to learn those more. Mark and I launched and hit a couple drifts on island areas, with a slow start. Before long though, Mark connected with one about 5 pounds on a tube bait. Looking at the area, it wasn’t something we could duplicate and although it was a nice fish, as far as patterning, we were still in the same boat, no pun intended.
I began to fish tighter gaps with swift current that helped narrow the large river down almost into a small creek. It worked. I began seeing and catching more fish up to six pounds. It’s all about thinking about the most advantageous places for the fish to eat. Seams in the current where faster water meets slower water is a simple example of a great ambush point. The fish can sit in the slower current, not spend as much calories, yet have an easy move to slightly swifter current to dart out and grab an easy meal that the current essentially brings right to it. Seems like a smart way to do things on the fish’s part. The ultra clear waters of the St. Lawrence further aid in being able to see what’s going on under the water and visibly watch how fish relate to the current. Between a small spybait, a hair jig and a drop shot and tube bait, the bites came fairly frequently as we scoured both shallow and kept the deeper stuff honest too.
PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
The next couple days of practice we spent some time over on the Canadian side, checking in in the Cape Vincent area fish, doing a bit of largemouth fishing and fishing all the way to the Massena dam with both Mark and Bobby Scott of Rabid Baits, who also fished the event as a co-angler. The game plan was loosely there as I planned to stay between Chippewa Bay and our launch site of Waddington the first day and hopefully hammer out another quality bag of fish and build on what we had seen in practice.
DAY ONE
Day one we saddled up and rode west with my day one partner, Marc, from Montreal. This is where it gets difficult to figure out. We stopped just short of an area that I had a couple 4-5+ pound fish shallow, on the tail end of what I would call a riffle. As we fished our way up I saw a couple smaller fish, but nothing worth catching. As I threw my spybait, thunk, a giant wind knot stopped my cast as we neared the spot. I attempted pulling it out to salvage it, but it was too far gone. I ended up cutting and pulling line this way and that for about ten minutes or so before we were able to get to root and get the bottom of the line out. We retied the leader and began casting again as we got up to “the juice”. I looked around looking for a 5.25 pounder I found, relating to an open spot behind some grass, but just couldn’t see well enough. I cast around and caught one about two pounds.
Anytime, and I repeat, anytime, I catch that first fish, I am grateful. The one thing I have learned, never throw back a small keeper, especially when it’s your first fish. The only time I would consider it, is if the fish was unhealthy, gut hooked, etc. Otherwise, I’m grateful for every bite. I have thrown back small keepers at places like Lake Champlain in the past and almost always it has come back to haunt me, or made for a more stressful day than needed. We worked around the corner and ran a very short distance to another island where I found a couple bed fish, one being at least four pounds.
I quickly caught a small male off a bed, threw it in the livewell and hooked up with the bigger female on a tube. The fish tail walked next to the boat and spit the tube. Shake it off, there are plenty of big fish and bites to be had in the St. Lawrence. I worked around the side of another island and saw a very good looking current seam with a notch inside it. Fyi, that’s a perfect spot for a good fish to sit. I threw my spybait and a five pounder followed it to the fast water, turned around and went right back. Perfect, we know where he’s at. I picked up my ⅛ oz black Rabid Baits hair jig and zipped it right over there. Another follow, but much closer to eating it. I fire over again and speed it up a touch and watch the fish come, eat it and turn. Yes! Reel down, lean back, crack! The whole leader came off as I watched the fish shake its head wondering what the heck happened. Hmm, maybe I tied a bad knot, although I always double or triple check it. That one hurts a bit more, because five pounders are what you are looking for. We ran around and hit a few more good areas, with either nothing or follows on both the spybait or hair jig. Now, when you are getting a lot of followers, it usually means the color is wrong, the bait is wrong or they want something sitting there. We hit an island spot towards Chippewa and quickly after, my co-angler got his first fish a 5-1 on a topwater bait. It was an excellent bite on top and pretty cool to see. I was happy for him and we kept working that area a bit, with no more bites. We also ran into my friend, Bobby, fishing there with his pro.
We headed back towards Waddington hitting a couple shallow and deep areas, before running into some more shallow bronze missiles. An area where Mark and I caught some 3 and 4 pounders on spy baits and hair jigs in practice when the wind was blowing was holding quite a few more fish than I even thought. With the calmer and sunny conditions, I watched 3-5.5 pounders follow both my spybait and hair. Everytime one would follow, we’d throw an easily accessible follow up bait, either a drop shot, tube, etc. We caught some 2 pounders and had a limit, but most of the big ones would not commit to even the follow up baits. A few bigger fish followed and stuck around, I backed off and made long casts to the area they were relating to and got two of them to bite. The key seemed to be letting it sit mostly still for a while, then, tick, they’d suck it in. Two big ones ate it on that one stretch, tick, pressure, nothing. I don’t know if it was the fishing pressure, weather or what, but they seemed to grab the back of my very small bait and pull it down without actually getting the hook. Frustrating, but keep rolling and working.
We worked up to a key stretch I found that had tons of 2-4 pounders on a nothing flat that didn’t look any good, prime spot for a heavily pressured fishery! The fish would follow, turn away and not eat the moving baits still, but it would show me where they were. Even if they don’t want to commit to moving bait sometimes, they can be great drawing tools to show you where a fish is. We caught a couple 2 pounders and had two 4 pound class fish follow, turn and stay in a tight area. Game on. I threw my tube to the first one and it went right to it. There’s this visual you get, usually when sight fishing a fish on the bed, when a bigger fish starts nosing down and slightly turning showing that light colored underside. That’s exactly what this fish did, then, tick, crack, tight, nothing! I watch the tube come towards me and the fish shudders like a deer when it hears your gun shot or hears your arrow come by. I cast back at it with a drop shot, the tube again, but it wanted nothing to do with it. Dang, another missed opportunity. My co-angler then missed one on the other side of the boat, another around 4 pounds he said and caught a 2.75-3 pounder shortly after on a wacky worm. As I rolled on, another four pounder followed my hair jig and I watched it settle near a clean spot. I quickly zipped the tube over there, but it wouldn’t acknowledge it. Next, drop shot, nothing. Dang. We circled back and made another pass or two, but the fish would not commit to anything, so on we went.
I had a number of small current breaks that were holding solid fish, but you would get one, maybe two off. We ran a couple and not as much as a follow as we continued up towards Waddington to do some deeper drifts. As we hit the deeper drifts we caught some 2-3 pound fish on drop shot, tube and ned rigs. We bounced between drifts and some shallower current break type areas with nothing big still. We ended our long day with a very mediocre 11-2 pounds. It was frustrating. It was also one of those days where when you throw your key fob to the BASS Official to check in are like, “how did that even happen?” I evaluated what I did and what I could do better the next day and knew I would need a really good bag to salvage after that very poor day one result. I decided to completely go the opposite way and head to Massena.
The best thing from day one was that my buddies, Mark and Bobby, on the co-angler side had great days and my buddy/roommate on the road, Craig, had 20 pounds of mostly largemouth on the pro side! Regardless of how my day goes, I always try to encourage and celebrate when my friends do well.
DAY TWO
Now, onto day two. I had a blast. This wasn’t because we caught twenty five pounds and had some epic comeback, but largely because once again my friends did well and I had a great co-angler, Shaun, that I got to share the boat with for the day. Shaun was from Canada near Port Huron and was fishing his first Bassmaster Open with his brother-in-law and friends from the club they fish together. It’s always fun fishing with a co-angler that is there to learn and have a good time and not only was that Shaun, but also just a cool dude to share the boat with all day.
Our first stop heading to Massena I pulled up on a drift and myself and Shaun quickly put a couple keepers in the boat. We made one more drift with no luck before continuing on. I pulled onto a flat where I had a 5 pound fish follow a hair jig the final day of practice. This time, it was windy, cloudy and slightly rainy. I switched up to a topwater and once I approached the area the fish was hanging a couple days prior, a brown missile exploded the surface on my bait, missing at first, but as I continued the same working it with the same cadence, it came back and got it slightly, just nicking a hook and pulling tight for half a second and coming off. I quickly reeled in after it stopped chasing and threw a tube on it, drop shot, hair jig, spy bait, everything, with no luck. Dang, we’d be back for her.
I continued on to a shallow island spot with a good seam where some 4-5 pound fish were hanging out. My buddy Mark had a 5+ eat his ned rig, jump and come off the last day while we saw more quality fish hanging around before I pulled my trolling motor to keep looking for new spots. I set up and spot locked (a function to stay on a GPS coordinate automatically on your trolling motor) a long cast away, firing a small tube Tick, hook up. Wait, what?! Yes! A mean, current fighting smallmouth came rocketing up and stripping drag. We fought it around the boat, cradled her and put a near four pounder in the well. Score! Onto the next little shallow spot right nearby. We meandered around that one with no luck. Man did it look good, it looked right, but they aren’t everywhere. Onto the next, right across from it, bang! Wait, another topwater bite? No, two or three times it attempted to get it. I sped the bait back in and fired the tube over there as quickly as I could and let it sit. It took me 3-5 casts, but tick, zzz. ZZzzzzZZZZ! A fish around 4.5 pounds starts stripping drag and jumping trying to throw my hook, to no avail. Man, what a great fight with a mean, current fighting smallmouth in that shallow water. We brought him around the back and landed him right in the driver’s seat…yes! Shaun and I celebrated with a fist bump and we started firing back out there. We fished around the back of an island, then made another pass through the area where the big one was sitting, with no more bites.
Back to the spot we caught our first good one…nothing. I ran a number of other spots that just felt right with nothing. Back to the 5 pounder we missed on the big flat…fish, fish, throw, throw, nothing. Alright, let’s start heading back towards Waddington. We stopped on the drift that we caught those couple bass to kick off the day. I switched up colors on my bait and we bounced along in the current, slack. Wait, that’s a bite. Zzzzz! This one definitely feels bigger. “This has to be over 4,” I said out loud. We both watched intently waiting to see how big it was as a dark bronze blog emerged. Oh yeah, it was definitely bigger than four. We fought her around in the heavy current getting her next to the boat grasping around to cradle her and bring her on board. Got her. We both were smiling and admiring the girth of the beautiful St. Lawrence River smallie. We made a handful more drifts, catching some smaller keepers and with Shaun catching his number two keeper. We decided to move up a bit and make another drift. Bounce. Bounce. Slack. That’s a bite, zzzzz! Dang, this is a big fish. I couldn’t even move this thing. Do I have a 7-8 pound bass? Is it a sturgeon? Or our archnemesis the Drum? The more I fought and it slowly came up, the more I was thinking it was the latter. As it got to the surface we watched intently, both wanting to know what this giant fish was. Hmm, that doesn’t look like any of the above. We watched as a 10+ pound walleye drug behind the boat in the heavy current as I brought it closer, it kept looking bigger and bigger. What a beast. I didn’t end up weighing it, but it was definitely over 10 pounds and probably in the 12 pound range. Assuredly, one of my top three biggest walleyes of all time. Not a bass, but still pretty cool. Where’s a big cooler when you need one (laughs).
We continued hopping drifts as we dodged the downpours of rain the best we could as we caught smallish keepers. With a short day and time running low, I decided to run down towards Ogdensburg, knowing we’d only have about a half hour to fish. I pulled up on that flat where the two four pounders eluded us the day prior. I first worked it over with the topwater under cloudy and windy conditions. Nothing showed. I switched to a spy bait and caught a couple smaller ones that didn’t help before slowing down and working over the key areas with tubes and a drop shot. Nothing, dang. I ran across to a little current spot just offshore and caught a couple, one of which helped slightly after throwing two on the cull beam before we headed in. We had fun and ended up with 16-17 pounds with a couple small ones we couldn’t get rid of. We weighed our fish and I listened as my buddy, Mark, took over the co-angler hot seat. I was ecstatic for him. Bobby weighed in too and was one spot behind him at the time. They both ended up with good checks on the co-side. We took out and all talked for a while while hooking up the boat and getting ready for the journey home. I dropped Mark off at his truck and I spoke to Craig who had another good day, weighing in over 18 pounds and getting a check as well on the pro side. It brought a smile to my face that Craig got it done as well as Mark and Bobby.
My week did not go how I would have planned it on my end of things, but on that side of things, I was greatly satisfied. I always evaluate things at the end of a tournament or just a day on the water. What happened? What did I do? What could I have done differently? What was outside my control? In this one, I don’t know if there was a lot I would have ultimately changed. The only thing I think I could potentially point to, would have been to fish for my largemouth which usually produced 15-18 pounds pretty steadily and had a couple big smallmouth to mix in to get to 20 pounds or above, especially on the first day.
REFLECTIONS
You come into each event with hope. That hope usually centers around a goal of winning the event, holding that trophy at the end of the week, but as most of us know, those opportunities are so few and far between. But, certain events usually line up better for your skillset and letting one get away from you in those cases stings a bit more. The preparation for each event before you hit the road is very time consuming between studying maps, old tournaments and finding lodgings and planning trips. Then, you drive to a fishery which for me often is 10-20 hour one way trips, 4.5 days of official practice and 2-3 days of the tournament. It’s hard work and you put a lot of time and energy into each event. When it goes your way, it’s that much sweeter. When it doesn’t, it can be that much more disappointing. I’ve been doing this a while now. I began truly bass fishing/competitive fishing about twelve years ago when I was finishing up college and have experienced a lot of highs and lows that come with the territory. The one thing I’ve learned is you can allow results and circumstances to control you or you can choose to have a short memory and move onto the next. This goes the same for poor finishes as it does for good ones. The key when you are truly doing “your best” is being steady and consistent. Don’t get too high or too low. When things don’t go as planned, you roll with it. When things do, you stay humble and keep things in perspective.
Success can ruin you the same way that failures can. That was the biggest piece of advice my good friend, Rich Damianos, gave me when I began fishing, handling success being just as important as handling the failures. I remember thinking, “right, handling success is so hard.” As years passed, I began to understand that more and appreciate that wisdom. With success comes more expectations from outside and more importantly internally, more scrutiny and more of your time and energy wanted from sponsors and people. All those things can be good things when balanced properly, but also can get out of hand if you let them or don’t have people around you helping to manage them.
As far as the St. Lawrence River event goes, it was definitely disappointing. I’d fished clean almost all season, avoiding any major problems, but for some reason it did not come together despite the long, hard practice days and formulation of what I thought was a pretty fluid game plan. What do you do now? Do you feel bad for yourself? Do you beat yourself up? Neither. You move on and focus on the next one. Yes, that sounds too easy, right? When you are fishing every week or seemingly every week there’s a new tournament. When you are touring and fishing, there’s no time to stew. You move onto the next and guess what, that’s a blessing. The next event is always a new opportunity. It doesn’t matter how last week’s tournament went, or the season as a whole has gone. The one in front of you is the only important one. That hard work ramps back up, that hope and that possibility that it could be your time.
Keep things in perspective and count your blessings. Tightlines everyone!
